BOOK. OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 125 



Animal Flowers. 



Half removed from the objects we have just been 

 considering, we observe, on our way to those of a 

 higher order, a number of curious productions in the 

 form of fleshy excrescences among the rocks and 

 stones; some with their heads drawn close together, 

 and others spread out at top in all the luxuriance of 

 a full blown flower. These, on account of their firm 

 adherence to a particular spot, and apparent want 

 of sensibility, might be taken for vegetables ; but, up- 

 on minute examination, they will be found to con- 

 stitute part of that superior class, or uniting link be- 

 tween the vegetable and animal creation, that we 

 had occasion to mention in a preceding chapter upon 

 Quadrupeds, under the appellation of Animal Flow- 

 ers. Let us attend to the operations of one of them, 

 and we shall soon discover, that what at first wore 

 the appearance of a still, inanimate, full-blown flower, 

 has something of a living and active principle in it. 

 Touch its diverging rays or filaments, and see how 

 they contract ; but in this you may say it does no 

 more than the sensitive plant ; make, however, an- 

 other experiment, and put a shell-fish on its orifice, 

 behold how it extends itself to receive it, with what 

 efforts it sucks it in, and how the under part of the 

 body swells as it forces the food into the stomach. It 

 is not, however, capable of digesting the shelly sub- 

 stance, and see with what artifice it disgorges it, af- 

 ter having stript it of its contents. These are cer- 

 tainly not the properties of mere vegetables. But 



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